Sunday, March 15, 2015

If you've just wandered in off the internet, hi and welcome. :) I do these posts every month, so if this post isn't dated in the same month you're in, click here to make sure you're seeing the most recent one.

Markets with specific deadlines are listed first, "Until Filled" markets are at the bottom. There are usually more details on the original site; always click through and read the full guidelines before submitting. Note that some publishers list multiple guidelines on one page, so after you click through you might have to scroll a bit.

Presentism as a theme: the pitfalls of distraction, overstimulation, attention thieves. Too much to do, too little time, fear of the singularity. Advantages of being bored or being "in the present." Are we becoming ADD? Should we disconnect--or connect even further?

Stories should be submitted in either Microsoft Word (using double spacing), RTF, or plain text. They should be between 1,500 and 3,000 words. Flash humor pieces (Grins and Gurgles) should be short, around 600 words.

Please don't send simultaneous or multiple submissions. If a story has been rejected, you can then send another.

Submit by email to flatsubmit@thirdflatiron.com either as an attachment (Word) or in the body of the mail (text).

In the Subject: line of the email, please put flatsubmit:Title_of_Your_Work to avoid being deemed a canned meat product based on ham.

If the work is for the humor section, please note that in the body of your email. A brief bio and a one- or two-sentence synopsis in the body of your email would also be helpful to us.

Your story must be original work, with the digital rights unencumbered. Accepted stories will be paid at the flat rate of 3 cents per word (U.S.), in return for the digital rights to the story for six months after publication. All other rights will remain with the author. We no longer offer royalties. If your story is selected as the lead story, beginning July 1, 2014, we will pay a flat rate of 6 cents per word (SFWA professional rate), in return for the permission to podcast or give the story away as a free sample portion of the anthology.

Third Flatiron will price and market your story to various e-publishing venues. We will format the story for the most popular electronic readers and platforms. You agree that we may distribute a sample (portion of the story) to potential customers.

For non-U.S. submissions, we prefer to pay via PayPal, if you have such an account.

Authors selected for publication will also be entitled to one free online copy of the anthology.

With the ever-increasing scrutiny the fantasy and gaming genres are receiving regarding gendered roles and its treatment of women, the time is right for a series of anthologies that celebrates the empowered woman in the fantasy universe. She is no longer just the love interest, just the damsel in distress, or just the prize. She is strong, independent, and she knows that the armor depicted in video games wouldn’t stop anything but traffic.

It’s true that the kind of female warrior who would be on the front lines in practical armor, without hiding or apologizing for her gender, has little historical precedent in the medieval societies on which much fantasy is based, but fantasy doesn't need to have its basis in real world European history.

Evil Girlfriend Media is committed to breaking stereotypes and pushing the boundaries of speculative fiction. We encourage you to use this opportunity to do just that. Your secondary world can be based on some other culture or created out of whole cloth. It can be your proprietary universe in which you have set other works. We ask only that the protagonist be a female character who is already empowered. There are plenty of works out there about women who are struggling for acceptance or to build their self-identity. In this anthology, we would like to focus on the kinds of challenges that empowered, powerful, seasoned warriors would face.

If you do not receive an invitation, we may have plans to invite you for future anthologies in this series. However, if the theme inspires you, please submit a story! Also, the anthology is open to all regardless of gender, this is not an exclusively female author anthology.

We are accepting new works for consideration, and reprints if the rights are currently unencumbered. We are able to offer an advance of 6 cents per word up to 5,000 words for original fiction, and 1 cent per word for reprints, along with one author’s copy (of each available format) per contributor and an author discount on additional copies. Advances will be payable upon publication. Due to budget constraints, we will not be able to offer additional compensation for original stories that check in above 5,000 words. 2,000-5,000 is our ideal range. We are asking for non-exclusive anthology rights, and the authors can reprint after a year.

Before submitting, please be aware the anthology is contingent on funding from a Kickstarter project. The first month of publication all royalties will be donated to a PTSD charity of Evil Girlfriend Media’s choice that focuses on providing services for all individuals regardless of sex, gender, race, age, sexual preference, or disability.

IMPORTANT: Submit your story in standard manuscript format to harbowy.antho@gmail.com

In the wondrous age of steam, pirates, rust, and syphilis aren’t all you need to worry about. Ghosts abound!

In this hissing and clanking steampunk world, there are moments that science just can’t explain. All the mechanical geniuses scratch their heads and whisper words of ghosts and powers, of spirits and demons. Possessed automatons take on lives of their own. Superstitious pilots take all necessary precautions. Avant-garde machinists harness the spirits to power their creations. Revenge-minded ghosts stalk haunted gasworks. This is a mechanized playground for the souls of the dead.

These are the tales we’re looking for: where the spirit world proves itself at times inspiring and dangerous, useful and annoying. In a rich steampunk world, chock full of gizmos and gadgets aplenty, tell us the stories that go bump, clatter, boom in the night. What if Jules Verne wrote Ghostbusters? What if Scooby and the gang rode around in a steam-powered airship? What if Tesla talked to the dead?

If you would like to submit a story for one of them, we are having an open reading period for original fiction submissions from March 1, 2015 to April 1, 2015. We are paying six (6) cents per word for up to 4,000 words. Publication requires first rights for the print and digital versions of the anthology. No reprints. You may submit one submission per anthology. Please, no simultaneous submissions. Send your manuscript as an attachment (.doc, .docx, or .rtf only) in standard manuscript format. Diversity welcome.

Burn your story in a graveyard under the full moon, or just send it to submissions@brokeneyebooks.com (with “GITC Submission: [YOUR TITLE]” in the subject line)

Gleaming labs whir with the hum of servers as scientists unravel the secrets of the universe. But as we peel away mysteries, the universe looks back at us. Even now, terrors rise from the Mariana Trench and drift down from the stars. Scientists are disappearing—or worse. Eldritch algorithms are erected as countermeasures. Experiments take on minds of their own. Some fight back against the unknown, some give in, some are destroyed, and still others are becoming… more. The human and inhuman are harder and harder to distinguish. Mankind is changing, whether it wants to or not, using implants, chemical alterations, genetic manipulation, new senses that man did not evolve to process, artificial intelligence, cybernetics, drugs—brand new ways of thinking.

Of course, the Old Ones laugh at our laws, scientific and otherwise. What havoc is wreaked by those humans trying to harness and control their science to grow as a species? As big science progresses and the very particles and substance of this universe are understood, what stories are being hushed up? Tell us a tale, and make sure it has a beginning, a middle, an end, and a Cthulhu… (Well, incorporate the Cthulhu Mythos, anyway. Big C himself doesn’t need to make an appearance.)

Broken Eye Books wants your transhumanist near-future science fiction tales of the Cthulhu Mythos. These are tales of more than merely cosmic dread. They exist in our world of the next couple years (no more than that!). This is the era of big science, with stories that have full-tilt plots and characters writhing in the throes of—what is that? We’ll be right back. Send us your maddening masterwork of less than 4,000 words.

If you would like to submit a story for one of them, we are having an open reading period for original fiction submissions from March 1, 2015 to April 1, 2015. We are paying six (6) cents per word for up to 4,000 words. Publication requires first rights for the print and digital versions of the anthology. No reprints. You may submit one submission per anthology. Please, no simultaneous submissions. Send your manuscript as an attachment (.doc, .docx, or .rtf only) in standard manuscript format. Diversity welcome.

Set your story adrift directly into the void, or just send it to submissions@brokeneyebooks.com (with “TC Submission: [YOUR TITLE]” in the subject line).

Crossed Genres Publications will publish Hidden Youth: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History (expected release January 2016). Below are guidelines for submitting stories to Hidden Youth. Please read the guidelines carefully before submitting.

Direct all queries to hyquestions@crossedgenres.com. Please do not query asking for an exception to the guidelines. Do not send story submissions via this email – see below for how to submit without using the form.

We welcome stories by authors from all walks of life. We especially encourage submissions from members of marginalized groups within the speculative fiction community, including (but not limited to) people of color; people who are not from or living in the U.S.A.; QUILTBAG and GSM people; people with disabilities, chronic illness, or mental illness; and atheists, agnostics, and members of religious minorities. The protagonists of your story do not have to mirror your own heritage, identities, beliefs, or experiences.

We also especially encourage short story submissions from people who don’t usually write in this format, including poets, playwrights, essayists and authors of historical fiction and historical romance.

Submissions are due April 30, 2015. If it’s still April 30 in your time zone, you’re good. Acceptance notices will be sent by October 1. The anthology is tentatively slated for a January 2016 release.

We pay USD 6¢/word for global English first publication rights in print and digital format. The author retains copyright. Payment is upon publication.

==Length: 2000-8000 words (FIRM)
==Your story must be set before 1935 C.E. (NO exceptions), and take place primarily in our world or an alternate historical version of our world. (Travel to other worlds, other dimensions, Fairyland, the afterlife, etc. is fine but should not be the focus.)
==Your protagonists must be young people (under the age of 18) who were marginalized in their time and place. By “marginalized” we mean that they belong to one or more groups of people that were categorically, systematically deprived of rights and/or economic power. Examples in most times and places include enslaved people, indigenous people, queer people, laborers, women, people with disabilities, and people who do not share the local dominant religion, language, or ethnicity. Many people belong to multiple marginalized groups, and many are marginalized in some ways and privileged in others. Your story should acknowledge the complexity and intersectionality of marginalization.
==Your story must contain a significant element of science fiction, fantasy, horror, or the weird, without which the story would not work or would be a substantially different story.
==All submissions must be in English.
==Please note: while we are looking for stories about young people, this is not specifically a YA anthology. We are interested in work that will appeal to a broad audience.
==No reprints. No simultaneous submissions.

We will not accept any story containing the following:

==Gratuitous or titillating depictions of violence.
==Gratuitous descriptions of bodies or body parts, or people described only in objectifying ways.
==Horror that relies on shocking or grossing out the reader.
==Stories that are all about how someone non-marginalized became an enlightened champion of marginalized people.
==A protagonist from a societally or technologically powerful group who happens to be temporarily or situationally powerless (e.g. a peasant who’s really a prince, a representative of the British East India Company shipwrecked on Ceylon).
==Depictions of marginalized people as being doomed to hopeless misery.
==Depiction of any group, no matter how powerful, as universally, inherently, or irredeemably evil.

If you decide to incorporate one or more of the following elements, please do so with caution and awareness of the ways that they can be problematic or difficult to write about.

==Violence, particularly sexual violence. We recognize that sexual violence is frequently used as a weapon against marginalized people, so we are not issuing a blanket prohibition against it, but please consider very carefully whether you need to include it in your story; and if you decide that you do, please consider very very carefully whether your story needs to show the violent act itself.
==Consensual sexual encounters. We’re not averse to sexual or erotic content, but it needs to further the story and incorporate awareness of the ways real-world power relationships affect sexual behavior and decision-making.
==Stereotypes and clichés.
==Alternate history that drops magic powers or anachronistic technology into a historical setting.
==A protagonist who is the only marginalized person in the story.
==Revenge fantasies.
==A setting that’s already very commonly used in speculative fiction, especially one that’s often associated with stories featuring members of privileged/dominant/colonizing groups, e.g. Victorian England, the American “Wild West”.
==A rewrite of a common YA trope. No Twilight, Hunger Games, Harry Potter reboots please. Yes that means we don’t want to see “If Bella was a Black girl in the 1800’s”.

Your story doesn’t need to have all these elements, but we’re especially interested in stories that have at least some of them.

==Intersectionality.
==Accurate depictions of life on the margins.
==Thoughtful, sensitive incorporation of religion, superstition, and folklore.
==Depictions of historically accurate societal attitudes in the context of an authorial voice that does not condone or espouse bigotry. (For example, your female characters will probably have to deal with societal sexism, but your descriptions of them should not rely on sexist stereotypes.)
==An understanding of how economic, technological, political, and religious influences shape a time and place, especially in alternate historical settings.
==Research bibliographies and suggestions for further reading.
==Integration of friendships, family relationships, and community into the story.
==Protagonists who make conscious choices and take conscious action.
==Side characters who are real people.
==Personal triumphs and successes.
==Making us laugh, think, cheer, and weep.

To submit a story to Hidden Youth, please fill out the form [on our web page.] Be sure to:

==Address your submission “Dear Hidden Youth editors” or “Dear Ms. Kendall and Dr. Samatar” or “Dear Mikki and Sofia”. Include your story’s year and location at the beginning of your submission.
==Attach your story as a .doc, .docx, or .rtf file, with your name, the story title, and the wordcount on the first page.
==There will be an email address to send submissions to if for any reason you’re unable to use the form.

SUBMISSION WINDOW: April 1 – April 30, 2015 [NOTE: They don't specifically say, but this usually means that any submissions received before the beginning of the submission period will be trashed unread.]

LENGTH: 500-5000 words.

PAYMENT: $0.07 per word + contributor copy. Payment will be made upon acceptance. Our preferred method of payment is via PayPal, but you may request image descriptiona check.

FORMAT: RTF or DOC. Standard Manuscript Format or something close to it (We won’t take points off if you prefer Courier to Times New Roman or some such), except please remove your name and any other identifying information from the manuscript as all submissions are read “blind”.

RIGHTS SOUGHT: First Worldwide print and electronic English Language rights. Exclusivity for 90 days from date of release. Non-exclusive rights to keep the anthology in print across different publishing platforms afterward. Preview sample contract.

POLICIES & RESPONSE TIME: No reprints, multiple or simultaneous submissions please. Do not send us any story we already considered for a previous UFO volume. We will respond to all subs within 30 days. If you don’t hear by then please check your spam folder, then query at the same e-mail address with the word QUERY in the subject of the e-mail. Please send only one submission per author.

WHAT WE WANT:

We’re looking for speculative stories with a strong humor element. Think Resnick and Sheckley, Fredric Brown and Douglas Adams. We welcome quality flash fiction and non-traditional narratives. Take chances, try something new, just make sure that your story is funny.

Puns and stories that are little more than vehicles for delivering a punch line at the end aren’t likely to win us over.

The best way to learn what we like in general is to read a previous volume volume. You can buy it here and also read the online stories for free.

WHAT WE DON’T WANT

These are the tropes we see entirely too much of in the slush pile and/or subjects already covered by one of the headliners. You will improve your odds if you steer clear of these:

OUR PROCESS: Each submission will be read and considered by 3 editors. They will read blind — they won’t have access to author names or publishing history. Any story with 2+ “yes” votes will be advanced to the second round, where all editors will read it. Stories that are well-received by the full editorial board will advance to the third and final round of consideration. At that point we’ll ask to hold your story until mid- to late May, when final decisions will be made.

We are writers ourselves and understand the value of prompt communication. You will be notified of each step, if and when your story advances.

The best way to learn what we like in general is to read a previous volume volume. You can buy it here and also read the online stories for free.

WHAT WE DON’T WANT

These are the tropes we see entirely too much of in the slush pile and/or subjects already covered by one of the headliners. You will improve your odds if you steer clear of these:

OUR PROCESS: Each submission will be read and considered by 3 editors. They will read blind — they won’t have access to author names or publishing history. Any story with 2+ “yes” votes will be advanced to the second round, where all editors will read it. Stories that are well-received by the full editorial board will advance to the third and final round of consideration. At that point we’ll ask to hold your story until mid- to late May, when final decisions will be made.

We are writers ourselves and understand the value of prompt communication. You will be notified of each step, if and when your story advances.

[NOTE: click through for an explanation of what they consider "dark humor," and a FAQ.]

Stories should be the type generally referred to as "sword and sorcery" and must have a strong female protagonist whom the reader will care about. See Sword and Sorceress 22 through 28 (or S&S 1-20) for examples. We do not want stories with explicit sex, gratuitous violence, or profanity. We are NOT a market for poetry. We are willing to consider stories set in modern times (urban fantasy), but we won't buy more than one or two of those for the anthology. We always want something short and funny for the last story.

No reprints. No simultaneous submissions.

With regard to multiple submissions, do not submit more than one story at a time. If we've rejected your first one, you may send one more, as long as it's before the deadline. We have occasionally bought someone's second submission. We have never bought a third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, or eighth submission. If you send us two stories, and we don't hold either of them, wait until next year to try again. Please do not re-submit stories we have already rejected (including stories rejected in previous years).

Please do not explain or describe your story in the e-mail (cover letter). If your story can't stand on its own, fix the story.

Accepting Submissions from Saturday, April 18 to Friday, May 15, 2015. Stories received before or after this period will be deleted unread.

Response time is expected to follow MZB's traditional standards: you should hear within a week if we're holding your story for the final line-up or rejecting it.

Length: up to 9,000 words, with preference given to shorter stories. The longer a story is, the better it has to be. Long stories should be submitted early in the reading period.

Formatting and Submission:

Format with one-inch margins on all four sides of page.

Please do not use a header or footer.

Your legal name, full mailing address, and email address must be in the upper left corner, single spaced.

Skip two lines, center the text, then put the title, with your name (or byline) on the next line. We're not going to be as rigid as MZB was about pen names, but we expect them to be reasonable, rather than cute.

The rest of the manuscript should be single-spaced, with the first line of each paragraph indented 1/2 inch.

If you need to indicate a break, put "#" on a line by itself, centered.

Do not underline; use italics instead. Do not use bold face. We prefer Courier New font, size 12.

Word count will be determined by our word processor; that way it will be the same for everyone.

Save your document as an .rtf file (rich text format or interchange format, depending on what your computer calls it). E-mail as it as an attachment to mzbworks at gmail dot com. The subject line should be "SS30, your last name, story title" (e.g.: SS30, Bradley, Dark Intruder) -- we don't want submissions caught in the spam filter.

Rights purchased: first rights, non-exclusive eBook and audio book rights.

Payment: 5 cents per word as an advance against a pro rata share of royalties and foreign or other sales.

==Have a main character that a middle grade reader (ages 9-12) can identify with;
==Show a diverse set of real characters;
==Are well written, fun to read and encourage a love of reading science fiction;
==Tell of adventure, space, science. Give us rockets, robots and alien encounters, and we’re pretty happy. Steampunk, time travel, weird west and alternate history are all fine.
==Are between 3,000 and 6,000 words.

We’re especially looking for stories:

==Of adventure! We love a good dystopia as much as the next robot, but remember – this is the young explorer’s adventure guide.
==Where the main character is of a population that has traditionally been under-represented in science fiction, e.g. girls, people of color, differently abled people;
==Where the main character has agency, exercises it, and isn’t just along for the ride.

We’re not interested in:

==Stories where the female characters primarily exist to be rescued or as a prize for the males;
==Stories where the primary plot or subplot is romantic in nature;
==Stories with graphic violence or any form of sexual activity;
==Stories about the first girl to do X, surprising everyone;
==Stories that depict any ethnicity or gender as universally bad or stupid.

Please note: although we’re aware kids have a wide and varied vocabulary, we’d prefer not to have swearing in the stories. If a story is selected for publication that has swear words, we’ll work with you to come up with alternatives.

Submission deadline, mechanics and planned schedule

==Anthology will be open for submissions from March 1, 2015 – May 31, 2015;
==While we prefer original stories, if you have something perfect that had a limited run elsewhere, query us and we’ll talk;
==Acceptance notices will be sent by July 1, 2015;
==July 14th will launch a crowd-funding campaign to help with pre-publication costs. Regardless of results of crowd-funding campaign, we are committed to publishing the anthology;

Rights and Payments

==Authors will be provided with a complete Anthology Contract for review and consideration with the notice of accepted submissions.
==In keeping with SWFA’s new guidelines, we pay $0.06/word on final edited word count for one-year exclusive worldwide rights, print and electronic, and two contributor copies. Payment upon final edit.
==We also buy the nonexclusive right to republish, print, or reprint the complete anthology in any language or format after the first year.
==If the crowd-funding fails, please note that we are still committed to this anthology, and will find other ways to fund the project. However, there may be delays. If authors feel the need to withdraw their submission due to delays, we understand.
==We will provide professional editing, primarily for issues of grammar and spelling.
==If authors have other questions about rights or payments, please contact us before submission. We want to make sure all concerns are addressed.

[NOTE: In case you're wary of crowdfunded books that haven't run their campaign yet, I had a story in last year's book and will vouch for the Weavers' professionalism. Their first Kickstarter campaign last year, in fact, failed, but they regrouped and ran another one and made their money. I was paid well in advance of publication -- a rare thing from any publisher -- and was very happy with how they handled their business. The contract offered was also very author-friendly, particularly in the case of the project completely failing, which is reassuring for people like me who are the sort to think, "What if these nice people get hit by a bus and their evil cousin Raymond inherits the business...?" Which is what everyone should think when deciding whether to sign a contract. So, good experiences, good contract, for whatever my recommendation is worth.]

About Me

My name is Angie and I'm a writer living in Seattle, WA with my husband. I publish science fiction, fantasy and crime stories under Angela Penrose, and romance and erotica under Angela Benedetti. I pretty much live at the computer, either writing or online or both. My schedule is chaotically variable, so I might be awake or asleep at any given moment. It's not all bad; writing at 2am when it's quiet is actually pretty cool.